The regulatory hammer that is being applied to stop a genetic testing company from marketing a $99 mail-order kit is a misdirected effort that presupposes people canít be trusted with information about their health.

The Food and Drug Administration is way off base.

At issue is the FDAís recent order that the company, called 23andMe, stop marketing its test due to fears that people might overreact to results and undergo unnecessary medical procedures.

The FDA worries, for instance, that women who get a false positive for a genetic mutation associated with increased risk of breast cancer might take the extreme step of having prophylactic breast removal survery.

Advertisement

In the real world, of course, doctors would almost certainly demand a second test and further consultation to be certain the risk merited the surgery.

Information is not the problem.

Instead of considering consumers to be the equivalent of small children prone to hysteria and incapable of making intelligent health care decisions, the FDA should be more concerned about a medical establishment that seems slow to adapt to these sorts of innovations.

The availability of cheap and easy genetic testing isnít going away. Though 23andMe is one of the leaders in this emerging market, itís far from the only company that offers such testing. The consumer demand is there.

That desire to know more about how genetics may foretell our prospects for a healthy life shouldnít alarm regulators or the medical community.

Instead, they should be reconfiguring services to help consumers interpret results.